NYC

Our bus left from Chinatown in Washington DC at 3:30am. The drive to New York City was suppose to take only 4 hours, but it took us about 6 hours because our bus broke down on the highway... it was quite funny. All I remember was that I woke up from my early morning nap to to our bus stopped and the driver simply saying in a Chinese accent, "Ladies and gentlemen, the bus is broke down." I chuckled to myself and put my head back against the window of the bus and kept sleeping, I woke up about two hours later to switch to a new bus.

While we were in New York we enjoyed our time at Central Park, 5th Avenue, Times Square, the Pier, Chinatown, and Little Italy. The highlights of the trip included riding a horse merry-go-round in central park, a hot dog on the pier, the smell of trash on the night streets (that smell reminded me of walking back from Yankee stadium with my dad as young child), and the hustle and bustle of New York.

There are two main highlights though that I want to briefly touch on- the friends that I went there with and an Italian man I saw in Little Italy.

One great blessing in coming to Washington DC has been the friends that I have made. I have had a blast getting to know everybody that is interning within the same program as me, a few of them have really become very good friends of mine. On Saturday I went to Washington DC with Kyle Carmichael, Sara "Palin" Sonntag, Ashley Mitchel, Paige Morton, and Kristen Staib. It was fun hanging with them and seeing how they reacted to certain situations... that in itself deserves its own blog post.

The second highlight was when we were walking around Little Italy after dinner. I had splintered off from out group in hopes to find a place to watch the BYU game (I didn't watch it, I guess Italians don't like BYU football that much). As I was walking down the crowded street a little Italian man came out of his restaurant and yelled to everybody shuffling by, "Best Italian food ever" and then he walked back into his restaurant. I had to laugh because New York is kind of the only place that you can do that... I mean, you couldn't do it Provo because there's barely anyone that would be there to hear it. Anyways, it's fun to experience new environments/cultures/conditions, whatever you want to call it. I walked away from that man thinking two things: 1) I love living in a place where people, including myself, can just do what that Italian man just did; 2) If it is the best Italian joint then I better make sure that I come back and eat there, I mean it's the best, right?

At the end of the night we walked down near the Brooklyn bridge and enjoyed the view and Ashley and Sara Sonntag dancing, which was almost as serene as the cityscape. We jumped on the bus at 9:30 and drove back to Washington DC and got home at about 2:30 without breaking down.